


Talk to Me

by cesau



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 21:37:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13132725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cesau/pseuds/cesau
Summary: Neither one is much for talk, unless it's with the other.





	Talk to Me

Soren had never been one for words.

He'd learned them late, and not by choice. Then, they were a tool, his only means of reaching out to the world around him – a world he'd already grown to fear, but by then he'd also found a reason to survive, and if surviving meant speaking, Soren found the strength to do it.

So he honed his words, learn to use the common tongue as sparingly and precisely as he did the ancient, treating every conversation with the gravity of the powerful incantations he'd had beaten into his memory. Along the way, there were even those who called him eloquent or clever, but never sociable. Even when he did speak more than was required of any given situation, his tone was never mistaken for friendliness.

But Soren had never understood words to offer much in the way of friendliness. Few directed his way had ever been of that nature, at least – the only kind words he'd ever known had come from the boy in Gallia, and if they'd been common, they never could have meant so much. But that kindness was a singular event in his short life, and he chased it through the wilds of Gallia, past the altars of Crimean churches, and finally to a mercenary fort in the countryside.

When he met the boy there, Soren lost his words again for the first time in years.

The commander, he spoke to easily. For all the years he'd spent poring over tomes of history, strategy, and finance, he was able to relate that knowledge clearly and confidently. When he asked for work, he lacked only experience, and he knew his youth would excuse that – if it weren't a strike of itself. But Greil took him on regardless (for pity's sake, Soren would later deduce), and that was how, after nearly a decade, Soren met his savior once more, and found himself speechless. 

“I'm Ike,” the boy had introduced himself, plain as day, and then he'd waited patiently for a response in turn. He seemed unbothered by the lack of one, continuing on as if it were completely normal – but for Soren, the world had shifted. “You're the new staff officer?” Ike asked.

Soren wanted to speak, but his mouth wouldn't move. Throat dry, he settled instead for a nod. He watched Ike's face, waiting for some spark of recognition in his eyes or the return of a welcoming smile he'd never quite forgotten, but nothing came. Instead, Ike frowned.

“You can't be any older than me,” he said. “Guess you must be impressive, if my father hired you. He says I'm not ready for the field yet.”

There was a sort of childish discontent to his tone, poorly suited to his otherwise serious countenance, but Soren found no trace of bitterness directed toward him. It would have been unfounded, anyway – he had shared his magical talents with Greil, out of desperation and with the hope it might convince the man to hire him. But Greil made it clear he had no intention of putting Soren on the field, preferring instead that he be trained in managing the company's stock from the relative safety of the fort.

It didn't occur to Soren to share that information with Ike. Nothing much occurred to him at all, except a bone-deep fear he couldn't place just at the realization that Ike was speaking to him, and his own inability to carry the conversation. What was he meant to say? What _could_ he say, without saying everything? He would feel foolish later, trying to unravel the expectations he'd set and how they'd all fallen apart the moment he knew he hadn't been recognized. But at the time, he was frozen, and it was all he could do to answer Ike's questions and statements with noncommittal nods, plain yeses and nos.

Finally, though it hadn't really been very long, Ike must have tired of it, and he brought an end to their talk. He bid his goodbye and turned away – and Soren never chose to move, but for all his voice had failed him, the rest of his body recalled his purpose here, and he followed after Ike as he left.

Other than perhaps a brief moment of surprise, Ike said nothing of it, and that became Soren's new routine. When he wasn't at work following Greil's instructions or chasing his own leads in an effort to impress his new employer, he sought Ike – usually to be found training in the forest or dining in the mess hall, always welcoming in a way Soren found easy to recognize and difficult to describe.

With time, Soren's words came back to him, though he never found much use for them. He learned quickly that Ike wasn't prone to any careless speech, and he began to think perhaps he understood the notion of 'companionable silence' now. There was a security to that; to keeping a distance between them that might have been broken if Ike understood what exactly had drawn Soren to the fort and what drove his attachment to Ike. It was better, Soren thought – even if he didn't quite understand why – that he should never know.

The simple truth of the matter was that he'd sought safety in Ike. In later years, reminiscing, he saw the sharply twisting path his life had taken, the detours he'd forged for himself, and he understood how a fanciful mind might observe his pursuit of Ike as fateful or romantic. His decision wasn't either of those things. At the time, he hadn't even been chasing Ike – not really. He'd been chasing sanctuary in the only place he'd ever known it: in the honest eyes of a stranger.

And even 'stranger' was generous; Ike hadn't been a person at all to him then. Ike was a symbol, a goal, and after Soren had found him again, an idol. Soren kept him at a distance, even as he followed after him as if pulled by chains. Always, there was the fear that his illusion would shatter: that the day would come he would be forced to see the humanity in Ike and abandon the safe haven his idealized image had come to represent. The vision Soren had dreamed up in childhood would wash away, and in its place would stand another cruel, disdainful creature he'd be forced to resent, because _it_ would resent _him_ , just as all the others had.

There was an inevitability to it, and he dreaded that day. It began to weigh on him constantly, the effects unrecognized for his usual solemn nature. But while his mind buckled under the pressure of that burgeoning fear, his body continued its work. He completed each task Greil set out for him as efficiently as the last, strode through the fort with as much confidence as he ever had.

He continued to follow Ike, the same as ever. He might have called it desperation, a need to seize every moment of peace before it was yanked away, but he thought the truth of it was only that he knew no other way to be. More likely, it was a weakness, his inability to turn away from the beckoning disaster.

So he followed Ike silently, and there came a day he watched him train with Greil in the forest clearing and wondered how much longer this calm could last. It had been nearly a year since his arrival at the mercenary fort. He'd become accustomed to his new routine and the people in it. Without Ike, Soren wondered whether he could stand on his own; whether he could stand at all.

Soren was aware of Greil leaving the training grounds and of Ike's approach, despite his own thoughts drawing him inward. He'd spent most of his life divided that way: half his mind twisted in its own thoughts, the other half coldly observing the world around him. He thought nothing of moving from his place at the edge of the clearing to meet Ike, and he only looked up briefly as he did.

He stopped, heart cold, at the frown on Ike's face. Discontent, he could see that. Anger, perhaps. However deep his frustration ran, Soren knew it was directed his way by the manner in which Ike's eyes followed him, and he stepped back reflexively, head turned down. He stood there, frozen, waiting for Ike to open his mouth and shatter the mirror Soren had created of him. All he could think was that he'd been waiting, but somehow it was still too soon.

“Talk to me, Soren,” Ike said.

And Soren looked up, also not by choice, caught off-guard by the nature of his tone. It wasn't gentle, exactly, but it was patient, and lacking any trace of fury or disgust. Ike spoke freely, matter-of-factly, unashamed. When Soren, unthinking, looked to Ike's face again, the frown seemed more to resemble confusion. It was a confusion Soren knew to be reflected in his own expression at that point, and he was lost enough that he never even considered the question and only tilted his head helplessly. Ike turned away for a very brief moment, then shrugged.

“You look like you have something to say,” he said. “So talk to me.”

“I don't-” Soren began, and he stopped when his throat began to catch. He waited one minute, then two. Waited for Ike to tire of his reticence.

But Ike only stood there, staring at him, as if he were waiting for something himself.

“I don't know,” Soren thought, and he didn't realize he'd said it aloud, but Ike's expression shifted into a brief, soft smile before returning to its usual stoicism.

“Alright,” he said.

“Alright?” Soren repeated, dumbfounded.

“I didn't mean to put you on the spot. It's alright if you don't have anything to say.”

Ike turned and walked back to the clearing, picking up his discarded training sword along the way. As he returned to his practice, imitating movement born of his father, Soren watched him and saw how the world fell away for him and his focus narrowed – but then every so often, Ike would cast a quick glance his way, sometimes offering a flash of a smile. Soren had no idea how to interpret that, or whether he'd behaved appropriately in that shadow of a conversation beforehand. A small part of him thought he ought to leave now, but the larger part was rooted in confusion and the faint light of hope, so it was all he could do to return to his place at the edge of the clearing and wait.

When Ike had satisfied himself with his training, he waved Soren over to begin the walk back to the fort. Soren joined him, as silent as ever, but only slightly wary of the offer – he would have followed without the invitation, anyway. Ike was quiet, too, until about halfway back, when he spoke for an offhand comment.

“Wonder what's for dinner tonight,” he said. If Ike was going to speak, Soren couldn't say he expected that, but he also couldn't claim to be surprised. Ike regularly ate enough for two grown men, let alone one adolescent boy, and Soren, while somewhat awed by the spectacle, had never liked to think much of it – it was irrelevant to the image he'd created.

But Ike hadn't shattered that image so much as he'd shaken it loose, and Soren was beginning to realize it was only a shadow compared to the person he'd based it off of. His fear was unfounded; Ike was unlike anyone else. He wasn't perfect, but of his faults, cruelty never factored and his honest nature outweighed them all. He was human, but he wasn't only that.

For the first time since his arrival, Soren knew he wouldn't be rejected. _Talk to me,_ Ike had said. Whatever hesitation had stopped his throat before cleared, and Soren spoke without thinking, words designed not for an idol but an equal.

“Is there anything you won't eat?” he asked.

“Not really,” Ike answered easily. He smiled, and they both fell silent again, though there was no tension to it; there was nothing else to say.

And Soren mused that so great a change had come for having said so very little.

* * *

The fort became something like a home after that – not exactly like one; he would only ever find one home in his life and it wasn't in a building – and he learned to tolerate the others there, even if he never gained affection for them.

Greil, of course, he respected, and he understood the debt he owed the man. While he found Titania's idealism irritating at times, he managed to keep her at a respectful distance. Mist, thankfully, wanted little to do with him, and he made no effort to draw her attention. The priest, the knight, the sniper, and the brothers, he safely ignored – for the most part. 

Boyd was a thing of his own, mostly for how easily he inserted himself into Ike's life and how quickly his friendship was reciprocated. Their camaraderie didn't surprise Soren, who had realized early on Ike's propensity for earning the affections of all who approached him, but it bothered him all the same. The root of it was largely his own misanthropy coupled with Boyd's persistent incursions on what Soren considered his own time with Ike, but it was just as much his inability to understand why Ike cared for Boyd at all. Soren detected no redeeming qualities in the loud-mouthed oaf, and he was vaguely curious as to what Ike saw in him (as to what Ike saw in anyone, really, including Soren himself).

But even the irritation Boyd presented did little to mar the comfortable space Soren had carved for himself with the Greil Mercenaries, to the point he was able to consider himself one of them without hesitation. As long as he stayed with them, he had Ike; and as long as he had Ike, Soren was content to put up with the more distasteful aspects of his new life.

He never considered his job one of those. He'd spent countless hours hunched over books of finance and tactics out of a desire to meet its demands rather than any sort of passion for the work, but numbers, figures, and, more than anything, mapping situations in his mind came easily to him. His 'talent' for it was only as in-born as his magical aptitude, honed through intensive study and repetition, but his efforts paid dividends and the results were more than simply adequate.

As such, when Greil ordered him gone, he didn't expect it.

Though he phrased it as a request, there was no denying Greil intended for Soren to leave the day he brought up the opportunity to join another mercenary company – as a “learning experience,” in his own words. He'd had the grace at least to meet with Soren alone to deliver the news, and it was fortunate, because the glare Soren leveled at him would have scandalized anyone else in the ranks. It wasn't a conscious decision, and had he been thinking clearly, he wouldn't have made such a show of disrespect, but his blind panic had only been clamped down by the cold, sinking feeling in his chest, and it was equally fortunate his reaction ended as lightly as with an unkind look.

“Are you ordering me to leave?” Soren asked, looking away.

“I'm ordering you to improve,” Greil said. “You're good. You could be better.”

It had been years since Soren's arrival at the fort. Years since he'd truly been afraid, since he'd found Ike and that simple, unconditional acceptance that allowed him to believe his being there was justified – that his being was justified. He thought of losing that acceptance. He thought of being alone. He looked back to Greil, schooling his face into the expression of unimpressed detachment he was best known for.

“And if I refuse?”

“We'll revisit the topic, if it comes to that,” Greil said. His face was stern, nothing more beyond that with which Soren might determine the extent of that promise. Greil had never been unkind, but he wasn't known for his gentleness. If he was possessed of that quality at all, Soren suspected it was reserved only for his own children, possibly just his daughter; certainly not for those in his employ. All the same, under the weight of that immovable gaze, Soren gleaned he was being looked after in some way, because Greil was not the sort to abandon any of his men. Not gentleness, but still some measure of kindness, if Soren couldn't understand it.

It was strange, how much of Ike he could see in the man, and how little comfort he took from it.

“Understood,” he said, and the matter was closed.

He tried, in the coming weeks, to distance himself from Ike, almost as if to test whether he was able. It was at once easier and more difficult than he expected to limit their interactions to those necessitated by the job, and he quickly realized that, as long as Ike was still in training, those interactions would be few and far between. The difficulty wasn't in keeping _himself_ from Ike at all; Soren slipped back into isolation with chilling ease, almost as if returning to his natural state. It was simple enough to sequester himself in the emptier parts of the fort during his downtime, and the distance he kept from the others – as well as his increasingly spiteful demeanor on the occasions they _did_ interact – meant they felt no obligation to stop him.

Except for Ike. No, Soren had no trouble keeping himself from Ike, but the reverse was apparently untrue. The real trouble with it all was that Ike ignored his self-imposed solitude and sought him out anyway, and when directly approached, Soren found it nearly impossible to turn him away. The difficulty was that the warmth of each conversation brought with it the dread of the cold once it had gone. Even the knowledge that the cold might soon be all he had left wouldn't allow Soren to push Ike away the way he had the rest. The best he could do was to speak less frequently, monitor his words more carefully than usual to catch the inevitable mistake before it happened, before it could ruin what was left to him.

Soren thought he'd succeeded, until the day he joined Greil on a mission close to the capital and, at the end of it, found himself wrangled into a meeting with the leaders of the mercenary group he would soon be joining. Greil had caught him off-guard and showed no remorse for it, and regardless of how well the meeting had gone, how little Soren reacted then or at the fort when they returned to it, he felt an icy rage at having been made a fool.

He schooled his emotions in front of the others when they returned to the fort, loathe to be seen behaving so poorly – childish, almost, only he'd never really been a child and he had no intention of starting now. It was the final straw, however, that forced him to come to terms with the reality of his situation: that he was going to leave this place, whether he liked it or not, and he would do it with his head held high.

With the lengths he'd gone to conceal his discontent and the calm he'd since adopted, he thought nothing of the next occasion Ike approached him. It was in the mess hall during a time most of the others would have been occupied, and Soren had only gone there because he figured it would be empty and quiet. Still, he was pleased (and equally unsurprised by his pleasure) to see Ike wander in, even if he should have been out training with his father. Their conversation should have gone the way of all the rest: Ike would speak for a while, Soren would respond as if nothing had changed, and at the end, he'd be left to his own thoughts and all that carried with it.

But Ike never could stop surprising him.

“Talk to me,” Ike said, taking the seat opposite Soren at the table in the corner. He leaned back and tilted his head, arms crossed, and said nothing more.

“Talk to you?” Soren repeated, and the disbelieving smirk on his face might have offended anyone else, but Ike only laughed.

“Come on, you've been moody ever since you got back from that last mission. What happened?”

Soren felt the chill in his veins, and he was aware of the smirk slipping from his face. He was quick to replace it with a blank look, to quickly usher away any sign that Ike had been correct in his assessment. _You're imagining things_ , was the sentiment he meant to convey, but if he'd ever been able to lie directly to Ike, he'd long since lost the ability, and a vague look was the best he could manage.

Ike, generally oblivious to the most glaring faults of those around him, somehow saw past his obfuscations every time. Soren found it unfair, both for the vulnerability it revealed in himself and for the comfort it brought him (– centered in that incessant voice at the back of his mind that tried to tell him Ike knew him better than that, and cared for him anyway). Now, Ike gave him a knowing look and leaned forward.

“Father said you'll be training with another group for a while,” he said, and at the flinch Soren couldn't restrain, Ike relaxed, satisfied. “So that's it? What was it, did you not like them?”

 _Of course not_ , Soren thought. It was an absurd question, and it was one only Ike would ask. Everyone else had understood his nature from the start: he cared little for others, and as long as they left him be, he cared less for their opinions of him. He'd only ever _liked_ one person, and the trouble he faced was in leaving him behind, even temporarily. He understood it as surely as he understood he would never say it aloud.

“It's a half-rate company by any standard, let alone compared to one as accomplished as ours,” Soren said carefully. “I question whether there's anything to be learned from them. Perhaps I'd be wasting my time.”

“I don't think father would send you if it was a waste,” Ike said. He was quiet for a moment; his gaze drifted and his brow furrowed, a look of frustration. “You know, if it would get him to let me on the field, I'd train with anyone, reputation be damned.”

“You'd leave this place?” Soren said, taken aback. Ike never was one for flights of fancy, and Soren had learned to take most of his words at face value. He was also intensely loyal to his father and the company – rather like the former, he seemed to view the latter more as family than as coworkers – so his apparent willingness to abandon them, even briefly, struck Soren as strange. Whatever suspicion showed on his face, Ike shrugged it off.

“If I had to for a while, sure,” he said. Soren looked away, uncomfortable at how easily Ike spoke of leaving his family (leaving Soren) behind. The movement perhaps revealed some of his uncertainty, because Ike hummed and asked, “What, do you think you'll get homesick?”

Soren turned to glare at him, ready to tell him the accusation was ridiculous, but again his hesitance to lie caught up with him. Instead, he sighed again – there was a smile on Ike's face, but Soren didn't feel like he was being laughed at. He also didn't respond, unsure of how to clarify a fear he didn't fully understand. Ike seemed to take it as affirmation, and he wasn't entirely incorrect.

“Well, you shouldn't be,” Ike said. “We'll still be here when you get back.”

“Will you, now,” Soren muttered. They should be, but in the past months, Ike had begun to progress rapidly and Greil had started to show signs of relenting to his wishes. It was entirely possible Ike would find himself a full-fledged member of the company by the time Soren returned, fighting in the field without Soren there to watch his back. He sighed. “It's not as if I have much choice. The matter has already been decided.”

“It'll be weird, not having you around,” Ike said. And then, with no pretense, “I'll miss you.”

Most boys their age wouldn't state it so plainly; they'd find a way to bluster it up, wary of being taken for soft. Boyd, that irritating fool, had once bid his own brother farewell with nothing more telling than, “Don't get yourself killed.” Soren wouldn't have managed that much, and he didn't now. He hummed his assent, and that was all. He wondered whether words were needed at all; his attachment to Ike should have been clear by that point to a stranger, let alone Ike himself.

Soren kept quiet, but he found his thoughts quieted, too. When the time came, he did go – if not happily, then at least with the comfort of knowing he wouldn't be forgotten.

* * *

The details of his time away from the Greil Mercenaries seemed trivial to Soren even as they occurred, and though his skill as both a mercenary and an officer improved, what he'd been sent to learn amounted to little compared to what he returned with: news of an ongoing invasion and impending war.

Any relief he felt at seeing Ike again was pushed aside in the necessity of preparing the company for the future, and then (much against Soren's wishes) in delivering the heir to the Crimean throne to Gallia. Every moment was crucial, and it left little time for pleasantries. Soren contented himself with the knowledge that Ike had been well, had finally been allowed to put his training to use, even, and he left it at that. On the few occasions they were able to speak outside of a professional setting, their conversation remained casual and friendly, unchanged in their separation.

In fact, it felt as though very little had changed, until Greil's death split the foundation upon which the entire company had been built. While perhaps they all carried some piece of it with them, it was Ike who shouldered the crumbling remains of his father's legacy, almost insistent that he should bear the brunt of it. And while he welcomed company, there remained the sense of something hidden, waiting to be revealed by the right question or touch – or perhaps that was only Soren's insecurity bleeding into his perception of things.

In any case, the others had been with him day and night since Greil's passing; what could Soren possibly offer that they hadn't already? Loss was an unfamiliar concept to him: he'd feared it plenty in his past – feared it just as well now, looking at the empty confusion in Ike's face – but he'd never experienced it.

It occurred to him then, staring at Ike's blank face, that he wanted to know the thoughts concealed behind it, to understand his mind despite the accompanying pain he felt certain was inevitable. For years he'd watched Ike, learned to decipher each minuscule tell, but here he found no clues as to his emotions. To understand this was beyond Soren's ability. It was beyond _him_.

Ike was young then, and they all knew it – but the magnitude of his youth was unrecognized without comparison to the man he would be in a scant few years. Soren had lost his youth before memory could solidify it, but he knew his age to be near Ike's. He was young, then, too, in body if not of heart.

In the end, he said so little, it felt as if he'd said nothing at all.

* * *

Yet again, even as true normalcy slipped further away, they (and the rest of their cohorts) eased into the closest thing they'd come to know, and the journey across Tellius continued, princess in tow. Greil's death was not forgotten, but the shock of it wore off quickly – to Ike most of all, it seemed at times. He pushed forward with a strange determination, and Soren briefly had the thought that he'd missed something his friend left still untold, but it was lost soon enough.

The first days in Gallia had been challenge enough for Soren, surrounded by sub-human creatures that made his skin crawl and put his mind on high alert. Wary of endangering Ike, he restrained his instincts and endured their company peaceably if not happily, reminding himself that it should only last until they left the forests of Gallia. Then he would be among humans again – and he'd never cared for any save Ike, but at the very least they were _people_ , not savage animals. People could be understood on some level.

His resolve was tested when the Beast King ordered three of his subordinates accompany the mercenaries to Begnion, a months-long journey even in the best-case scenario. Faced with the constant reminder of a past he'd only ever cared to forget, put on edge by the encroaching presence of the sub-humans, his admittedly unpleasant mood quickly worsened. Reminded that his words and actions reflected the whole of Ike's company, and painfully aware of the danger he'd caused with his slip-up in Gallia, Soren concluded avoidance was the safest route of engagement.

Confined to a single ship, the concept sounded more difficult than it actually turned out to be – he'd been granted his own small quarters below-deck, and it was where he spent the bulk of his time during the journey, unbothered.

When they disembarked in Begnion, afforded the proper space again and far from Beast country, Soren supposed it was the end of all that. He wouldn't feel well and truly normal again until this entire ordeal was over, the princess out of their lives, and the sub-humans returned to their forests, but he thought he could put enough distance between himself and the rest of it to do his job.

Then he found the book in Mainal's archives, and he forgot what normal was. For the first time in his life, he understood his own being. The circumstances of his life were clear: the folly that had led to his birth and the treatment he'd endured for it.

In his youth, Soren had understood there was some defect within him that earned him the scornful disinterest of his fellows. He'd never known his exact fault, but he'd never doubted its existence. Then, he'd grown, and he'd grown bitter, and he'd come to believe the trouble existed rather in the world at large. If he was flawed, then the world around him was just as much so.

But he understood now that his first instinct had been correct: the flaw was within – originated from his nameless parents, but inherited and held by him alone. That he'd gone so far in spite of it was due only to the ignorance of those he surrounded himself by. Whether he could continue, he thought, depended on that continued ignorance.

He knew the value of his talents to Ike and the company and that his contributions were far from meager. He also knew the weight of his newfound heritage, and when he measured the two, the fear it caused was paralyzing. When the fear thawed, his thoughts were all a rush, to the point he nearly admitted it all to Ike at the barest provocation. After that incident, he was careful to rebuild his walls, mindful as he was of the way those thoughts continued to hammer away at his defenses.

His resolve lasted him until they were out of Begnion. Suffering the actions of a known traitor for fear of his own secrets being revealed, even the harm he might bring to Ike couldn't force Soren's hand at that point. The guilt beat further at the walls of his mind, but he never would have spoken if not for Ike's insistence.

Despite the ordeals he'd been forced through – with the empress, with the army, with Nasir – Ike's attention was not so occupied that he missed the change in Soren's attitude. Or perhaps Soren had only become another of those ordeals. He thought he'd earned the distinction from his behavior with Nasir alone, even if Ike was yet unaware of it.

But still there came the day Ike cornered him alone and bluntly revived the subject of their last uncomfortable conversation, where Soren had inadvertently announced his past to him. It baffled him that Ike would want to know more than what he'd already been told, that he should want to see any further weakness in the company he kept. More than that, it frightened him. But Soren's increasingly desperate attempts at thwarting conversation failed, and all resistance was met by the steady weight of Ike's gaze and another inquiry.

Soren couldn't recall Ike having been so perceptive to his evasiveness in the past. It seemed as if it had been easier, before, to satisfy Ike's curiosity without revealing himself – but then, it had never been just curiosity, not with Ike. It had never been anything but concern, a genuine desire to help. Yes, it had been easier before; but Soren hadn't known what he was hiding before. He didn't want anyone else to know now.

“Talk to me,” Ike had said, because he'd realized by then that Soren would never tell anyone else. He'd never tell Ike, if he had it his way, but that resolve was quickly fading. Ike had never backed away from a challenge, and determination seemed to well up in him most at the darkest hour – and Ike spoke from the sunlight but Soren had been waiting for dawn such a long time.

Too long, and Ike had always been there, trying to reach him through it.

Soren broke.

He'd had the fanciful thought that the truth was like a constant pressure against the walls he'd built to protect himself. He'd always managed to rein it in, regardless. But there on the other side of those walls was Ike, and it turned out he needed only a gentle touch to bring them all to ruin.

Soren was crying even before he managed to speak his piece, and when he did speak, it was between continued sobs. Ike listened anyway, and Soren shouldn't have been surprised at his response. He shouldn't have expected anything but acceptance from Ike, but fear had kept him from expecting anything at all.

When all had been said, every secret laid bare, and he was met with the same open friendship as before, Soren felt a freedom beyond anything he might have imagined. He thought at the time that was the end of it: there were no more walls to break, nothing to be done to endear this man to him further. That wasn't the case – it would be a few years and greater battles before that conversation in the Tower of Guidance would reopen old wounds and heal them still more cleanly.

And it wasn't until after that Soren began to understand two things. The first was that there never really would be an end to it. Whatever he'd begun by putting himself in Ike's path, it wasn't something he was likely to ever fully understand, and attempting to strategize a relationship the way he did a battle was a fool's errand. He put fear of an ending out of his mind.

The second was that all their lives, Ike had watched after Soren better than the reverse, careful of Soren's withdrawn tendencies and heedless of his cruel peculiarities. Soren had made it his mission to protect Ike as best he could – physically, because that was the only way he'd ever really managed. It had begun as simply as with a watchful eye on the battlefield, and then more recently into the glad surrender of his body for more intimate purposes, but it had never occurred to him that Ike might suffer the same need for companionship and close confidence as anyone else.

It had never occurred to Soren that Ike might need him, too.

* * *

The final breaking point, if it were fair to call it that, came after the fall and rebirth of the goddess. The mercenaries returned to their old home in their new world, but things had shifted too far to play at normality any longer. A gap had arisen between the heroes and their people, and none put more effort into crossing it than Ike.

It happened before, after the Mad King's War, that he'd been distinguished as something greater than the average man. Ike's adoring throng looked upon him as savior, and it seemed to Soren he'd endured their uncomfortable affections only by the belief that they should fade, given time. The fervency of their worship had lessened somewhat, but it had never truly gone away, and the loss of the goddess fanned it until it grew larger than ever. Then, it had only been in Crimea. Now, it was all of Tellius. This time, even Ike must see that it was not a passing fancy. The people would not surrender their hero – their new god, nearly – blind as they were to his own desire to be free of them.

Every man and woman who had been present at that final battle was subjected to idolization of some degree, but there was no place Ike could go without suffering the most scorching intensity of it. Soren had done the same thing, once, and it was only now he realized Ike's aim in reaching out to him when he'd first arrived at the mercenary fort. Even in his youth, Ike had never found pleasure in undeserved praise. Years ago, he'd shown Soren his humanity, tried to find even ground between them, and he'd succeeded. Now, the attempt was proving to be too much.

Ike couldn't replicate those actions against a scale that encompassed the whole of the continent. He did try, Soren saw, if only briefly. But before long, confrontation had relented to withdrawal, and Ike began to hide himself away from the world whenever he wasn't required to be a part of it.

Soren knew enough about hiding.

He came upon Ike in their shared quarters one night, the man having disappeared earlier in the day without warning. He was sitting there at the desk, leaning over it, shoulders tense. Lost in thought, perhaps, as seemed to be the norm these days. Soren could guess at some of them, but not enough.

Between the two of them, Ike had always been the stronger, and this pensive silence ill-suited him. It gave the impression that he was building up to something, a storm brewing between the manic light of his eyes and the grim set of his mouth. Ike's strength had always been in his unwavering conviction, his sturdiness of character, his _unchanging_. There was no denying something had altered, though; that if he hadn't changed yet, he was on the verge of it, and who could guess what that meant? If, in 21 years, he'd never faltered, perhaps it had all been building up to this one great transformation.

Or perhaps the change wasn't built in Ike at all, but the world around him, and all of this was only an adaptation being forcibly drawn from his character.

Regardless, Soren knew whatever weight Ike carried with him, it was heavy enough that its passing would leave the man in a different state. The thought of it terrified Soren. He felt no fear for himself, however, and whether he'd still have a place at Ike's side never occurred to him. All his worries instead turned to Ike himself, this man who gladly shouldered his companions' burdens, but stubbornly held on to the lot of his own.

Soren had been the same way, and Ike...

This was all familiar for a reason, Soren realized with dark humor and a burst of nerves. Ironically, it was Ike who'd long ago shown him how to react now, taught him exactly the manner of comfort he would need so much later. Soren closed his eyes and breathed deep, and he marched over to the desk before fear could get the better of him. He stood behind Ike, draped his arms over his shoulders, and leaned his head against his neck, face hidden. He ignored the part of himself that shuddered away from the touch and the constant reminder that he was not built for this, that he didn't have it in him to be this person. _He's done this for you_ , he told himself. 

“Talk to me, Ike,” he said. For all he'd had to force the words, they came out clear and natural, and he felt Ike relax even as he heard a soft exhale that might have been laughter. Ike brought one hand up to cover his own, and he was quiet for a moment.

“You really wanna hear all that?” he finally said.

Soren freed his hands and pulled away, and as he did Ike turned in his chair to face him. He wore the exact expression Soren had expected, vaguely amused though it didn't quite hide the tension around his eyes. Soren crossed his arms and waited, ignoring what he'd gleaned to be an attempt at delaying the conversation.

“Fair enough,” Ike said. He still waited a moment before speaking again, as if he were considering his words, but when he did speak, it came out all a rush as if been struggling to contain it. “Did you notice everything change? It can't just happen all at once like that, right? I'm trying to figure out when it started.”

“When what started?”

“We used to save people all the time. I used to be able to go out there and do my job, and it was fine. It was good. Even after the war, it wasn't...” He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. He looked up at Soren, seeming almost lost. “It's different now. They never used to look at me like that.”

“They're seeing you,” Soren said. Not all of him, it was true, but the most remarkable part, and Soren truly couldn't blame them for it.

“No, _you_ see me,” Ike said, a look of frustration on his face. “I don't know what they're seeing, but it's not that. The look I get from them isn't the same as what I get from you.”

“I should hope not,” Soren muttered. The tension in Ike's expression gave way to a bemused smile, and he held out his hand. Soren went to him gladly.

“You know that's not what I mean,” Ike said distractedly, rubbing his thumb over Soren's knuckles.

“No,” Soren agreed.

It seemed they stayed like that for a long time, Ike in his chair and Soren by his side, hand-in-hand and voices silent. For Soren, it was only the natural way of things. Ike appeared to have withdrawn into his own thoughts again, and Soren waited patiently for him to emerge. When it seemed enough time had passed, Soren squeezed his hand gently, and Ike looked up, a new light in his eyes.

“What will you do then?” Soren asked.

“I'll go away, to someplace they don't know me,” Ike said with simple wonder, and as Soren stiffened, Ike's grip tightened and he amended more gravely, “ _We'll_ go. You think I would leave you behind?”

The diplomatic thing would have been to lie and say he trusted Ike too much for that, but Soren had begun to understand he would never be entirely rid of that quirk of personality that compelled him to brace always for the worst, even in words coming from the best.

“I wouldn't want to presume,” he said, looking away, but not quickly enough to miss the sad smile that passed over Ike's face. He somehow knew well enough not to press the issue.

“Are you ready to leave home then?” Ike asked.

“I wouldn't have to be,” Soren replied, still looking away. “This place was never my home.” He wondered if Ike would understand, ashamed of the heat he felt rising in his cheeks as he spoke. He turned his gaze cautiously back to Ike, and saw his expression had become thoughtful.

“But you do have a home?” Ike said slowly.

“Yes,” Soren said, at once relieved and embarrassed. The embarrassment won out as Ike's own face reddened for just a moment before he pulled Soren closer, nearly into his lap, and released his hand to instead bring him into an embrace. Soren readily returned it and soon felt the minute trembling of Ike's shoulders, followed shortly by his poorly stifled laughter. Leaning at an awkward angle, Soren stood back, hands on Ike's shoulders, and sighed.

“That's one reaction, I suppose,” he said. Ike shook his head, a helpless sort of humor to his face, but it was so much lighter than the burdened expression he'd worn when Soren first saw him there.

“It's just funny,” Ike said. “That really wasn't easy for you to say, was it? For how blunt you usually are, some things are like pulling teeth with you.”

Soren rolled his eyes and smiled. 

“As if you're any better.”


End file.
